16 apps and tools that help CEOs stay productive and successful

Cut down on email, manage your calendar, find your focus. If these tools work for people at the top of their game, they might be worth a download.

As you set your goals for 2019, you may be looking for new strategies to boost your productivity. Perhaps you want to find a way to better manage your email or organize your to-dos on a day-to-day basis. We asked a number of CEOs which apps and tools help them–and their teams–stay on task and fit more into each day. Here are a few to try out.

FOR STAYING IN TOUCH

You may find Slack equal parts productivity tool and productivity killer. But for many CEOs, Slack remains the simplest way to communicate with their teams. “I’m a huge fan of Slack,” says Jessica Matthews, the CEO of energy startup Uncharted Power. “It reduces email and allows for an ‘instant message’ form of communication that we find to be highly effective.”

For the team at cannabis startup Flow Kana–as at many companies–Slack serves as a way to bridge the gap between far-flung colleagues. “We have a team spread throughout the state of California in roles ranging from trimming and processing, to manufacturing, to sales and corporate operations,” says Flow Kana CEO Michael Steinmetz. “In addition to daily communications, we’ve found Slack unifies us in many ways, bringing our team in different locations and job types closer together.”

FOR KEEPING A TO-DO LIST

For Matthews, who calls herself a “huge proponent” of to-do lists, Evernote is her tool of choice. Her tip: Put more on your list than you can complete. “I like to make my to-do lists longer than anything I could feasibly accomplish in a day, so that I am never satisfied and always pushing myself,” she says.

Nicole Centeno, the CEO of food startup Splendid Spoon, uses her inbox as a “running to-do list,” which means she keeps no more than 25 emails at a time. “I’m pretty no-frills with the apps I rely on,” she says. “I prefer Google Calendar to most other organization apps because it allows me to prioritize meetings as well as tasks.” When she’s on the go and needs to jot something down, she turns to Captio, a note-taking app that delivers all notes to her inbox.